Kim tells the story of Kimball O’Hara (Kim) who is the orphaned son of a soldier in an Irish regiment stationed in India during the British Raj. Kim’s early life varies from being a vagabond on the streets of Lahore to his adoption by his father’s old regiment. In Kim, Rudyard Kipling captures the frenetic bustle of the bazaars of the sub-continent with its many races of people. Through Kim’s recruitment into the British Secret Service he takes the reader into the intricacies of the ’Great Game’ of espionage played out with the Russians against the backdrop of the High Himalayas and amongst the tribesmen of the North West Frontier.

Kim (1901) is widely regarded as Rudyard Kipling’s finest work, combining his first-hand knowledge of India and the Indians with his graphic and acute observation of human interaction and his flair for historical context. Kim’s real name is Kimball O’Hara, the orphaned son of a sergeant in an Irish regiment. Kim’s childhood is spent as a waif and vagabond on the streets and in the bazaars of Lahore, until he meets an old Tibetan holy man or lama who is in search of a mystical river and Kim accompanies him on his journey. On the way he joins up with his father’s old regiment, is adopted and sent to school. However, he continues his wanderings during his holidays. Colonel Creighton of the Ethnological Survey is struck by Kim’s aptitude for secret intelligence work and he joins the British Secret Service. Under the tutelage of an Indian agent, Hurree Babu, he joined in the ’Great Game’ of espionage which was played with the Russians along the North West Frontier of the Indian Empire for very nearly the entire duration of British rule in the sub-continent. Kim, while white, is very much a creature of the land of his birth and the book describes his straddling of the divide between the everyday life of ordinary Indians and the concerns of the British Raj, and contrasts Kim’s secular and action-packed life with the spiritual and contemplative searching of his friend the Tibetan priest, in the physically diverse settings of the hostile terrain of the North West Frontier and the whirling kaleidoscope of life on the Indian plains.